In some scenarios, a network includes a first base station and a second base station. There is an overlapping area between a signal coverage area of the first base station and a signal coverage area of the second base station, and an access priority of the second base station is higher than an access priority of the first base station. Therefore, when user equipment that accesses the first base station enters the overlapping area, the user equipment needs to be handed over to the second base station, so that the second base station performs offload on the first base station.
If the first base station and the second base station are located in different frequencies, to enable a handover of the user equipment to the second base station from the access device, there is a need to enable the user equipment to start inter-frequency measurement to measure a signal strength of the second base station. If the signal strength of the second base station is greater than a handover threshold, the user equipment is handed over to the second base station from the access device.
Currently, to start inter-frequency measurement, the first base station sets a starting threshold and sends the starting threshold to the user equipment, and the user equipment starts inter-frequency measurement when determining that a signal strength of the first base station is less than the starting threshold. Apparently, in this starting manner, inter-frequency measurement is not started when the signal strength of the first base station is greater than the starting threshold. As a result, the user equipment is unable to be handed over to the second base station from the access device, and the second base station cannot perform offload on the first base station.